


Prythian Online

by mariagesorcieree



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Mentions of panic attacks and anxiety, Romance, Slow Burn, friendship and bonding, mentions of violence/past abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:51:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariagesorcieree/pseuds/mariagesorcieree
Summary: After a terrifying break up with her boyfriend Tamlin, Feyre seeks comfort in an online game called Prythian Online. It is there that she meets Rhysand and the Court of Dreams, and begins to heal and cope with her trauma.Late night conversations, inside jokes and video calls. Lots of bonding and recovery, and perhaps a little bit of romance?





	Prythian Online

It was 5:43 on a summer afternoon, and Lucien was messing with her computer.

Well, technically he was fixing it. The laptop had seen some rough times and, much like most of Feyre’s belongings, it was at least several years old--a hand me down from her older sister Nesta, when she got a new one for college. Up until recently, it was running as smoothly as it could have been expected for its age, and with her current situation Feyre couldn’t afford to buy a new one.

Hell, with her current situation, Feyre could barely afford to buy a new _anything._ It had been a few weeks since she had moved into this small, studio apartment, and until she could find a job to support herself, she was living off the now dwindling amount of savings she had stashed away.

 _Weeks._ It had almost been a month since Feyre left her ex-boyfriend Tamlin, a month of nightmare filled nights, of constantly looking over her shoulder,  and triple locking the doors while drawing the curtains shut. Deep down she knew that Tamlin wasn’t _that_ far gone--at the very least he wouldn’t stoop so low as to poke around and stalk until he  found her--but his actions toward her the last few days before she had decided she finally had enough were...questionable.

“If you continue to make that face, it might get stuck that way forever.”

Across from her, Lucien was wearing his usual, unbearable smirk. Feyre rolled her eyes and resisted the temptation to chuck a pillow at his smug face.

“Oh? Is that what happened to you?” she sneered. Lucien simply laughed and went back to his work.

It was a last resort to call Lucien here, to ask for his help. Lucien was Tamlin’s childhood best friend and right hand man in whatever business they were involved in; he could have easily brought Tamlin with him to the apartment, or worse, sent Tamlin in his place. He didn’t, however, and Feyre was grateful. During her one year with Tamlin, she had grown close to Lucien as well and considered him a good friend, and was relieved to see that even after leaving his best friend, Lucien still felt the same. She could trust him--she had to. She couldn’t afford to pay anyone to look at her computer, and in this day and age a computer was something she needed. Especially if she was going to buckle down and do some job searching.

“Alright, that should be it.”

Lucien set the laptop down and leaned back on the loveseat had been hunched over on. “As long as you don’t lose your temper and throw the laptop across the room, it should last you.”

Feyre almost retorted with a smart remark, but stopped herself.

“Thank you, Lucien.”

She hoped that she expressed how she truly meant it. Lucien glanced up at her, a brief look of confusion on his face, before it gave away to a smile.

“You’re welcome, Feyre.”

Feyre wished that she could return the smile. Wished that she could feel anything aside from the alternating anger and emptiness. So she nodded instead and glanced outside. The sun was still out, but there was an odd stillness, a disturbing silence. If Feyre wanted to hear any signs of life around her, she would have to shut her eyes and really _focus_. Silence used to be a comfort for Feyre, but that was before...before everything. Now the silence was terrifying, unsettling. Silence meant that something was going to happen, that she had to be still and calm and--

“Feyre?”

She blinked and turned back to Lucien, concern etched across his features. Deep down she knew that Lucien meant well, but she despised that look--the looks of pity, of worry. The first few days after the incident, that was how her youngest sister, Elain, looked at her, _watched_ her. Looking at Feyre when she thought she couldn’t see, whispering words of concern to her eldest sister Nesta, always finding ways and reasons to be around her, as though she was a time bomb ready to explode. Unsurprisingly, Nesta’s treatment of Feyre remained the same outside of that first night, and instead of being angry at her sister’s cold behavior she felt relief. Nesta was treating her the same--continued to treat her the same. Why couldn’t Lucien and Elain do the same?

“I’m fine.” she snapped. “If you’re done, you can go.”

And there it was, the anger that she was trying to keep control over. Sometimes she could hold it down, but other times...it just let itself loose. Feyre would always regret it at some point, but in the moment the anger was all she had, all that kept her going.

Lucien shrugged and stood up, grabbing his bag from the floor and slinging it over his shoulder.

“Fine,” he said. “I can tell when I’m not wanted.”

She felt a bit of guilt at that, but it vanished in an instant. “I went through the liberty of downloading some new things on your computer by the way.” That damned smirk again. This time, Feyre let the pillow in her hands fly across the room. Lucien laughed as he sidestepped , easily dodging the incoming poop emoji pillow. “You should check it out when you have a chance. It helped me out back in college when I was stressed out of my mind. It could help you too.”

“I don’t need any help.”

A lie, but Feyre couldn’t give him the truth. The truth would mean having to acknowledge what had happened making it real. Feyre...wasn’t ready for the weight that would bring. Things were already stressful enough. She could live in her blissful lies for at least a little longer.

Lucien gave her that look again, and Feyre felt as though she was going to lose her mind. Frustration found its way through her body to her fingertips where they twitched in anticipation. She wanted to tear her hair out, to do something, to _feel_ something--

“Just...take care of yourself, Feyre.”

She could tell that there was much more Lucien wanted to say, much like how Feyre wished she could say more as well. They were very much alike in that manner; they didn’t know how to say what they truly felt. Lucien gave her one last smile, and Feyre could detect a hint of sadness in it. Before she could even respond, the door clicked shut and Feyre was alone once again.  Immediately she went to the door and locked it once, twice, three times, fixing every lock in place and double checking it. She then went over to every window and tugged the curtains shut, blanketing the room in darkness. She somehow managed to find her way over to the lamp in the corner and clicked in on, before running back to the door and checking her locks again.

Rationally, she knew that it would be impossible for him to get her, for him to even find her here--this was a part of the city that he would never journey to because of the “danger” that was there, and a place that he had banned Feyre from, despite the fact that her family lived here. She knew that she would be fine here, that her sisters were just a quick phone call away, that she at least had an acquaintance or  two that she could rely on if things somehow went south. But that was the thing with her trauma, with her anxiety; it didn’t give a shit about what was rational or not. It fed off of Feyre’s fear, off her experiences, and made her feel as though she had to hide from the world to protect herself. It made her heart hammer in her chest whenever she saw a painting, made her entire body freeze whenever she so much as caught a glimpse of someone with golden blonde hair. Feyre might have been free physically, to go wherever she wanted and see whomever she chose, but there were parts of her that still felt trapped in that place she was before, trapped as the girl she once was instead of who she became.

She had all the time in the world now. To recover from what had happened, to mend relationships, and to fix things that she had destroyed in the name of love.

Yet despite all of that, Feyre felt as though no matter what, there would never be enough time to fix herself.

* * *

 

 

_“I need you to do this for me, Feyre.”_

_“Feyre if you loved me, you wouldn’t question this.”_

_“Where have you been Feyre?_ **_Where have you--_ ** **”**

Everything was red. It stained her hands, her vision, her very soul. _This_ is what she had become, what she had allowed herself to be. She had tortured her own soul, had ripped herself to pieces for him, for Tamlin, and yet--

_And yet..._

**_“Feyre!_ ** **”**

She screamed for the first time. She screamed and thrashed and _fought_ because at that time she felt as though there were parts of her soul that she could still save. His grip just got tighter, his nails digging into her skin and cutting into her like claws, and he slammed her against the wall hard enough to bruise, and he raised his hand and he--

Feyre bolted up from the couch, a scream almost escaping her lips. She managed to cover her mouth before she did, and she thanked the Mother for that. And though it should have been the last thing on her mind at the moment, Feyre couldn’t help but be thankful; she had saved herself from yet another noise complaint filed against her.

Despite the fact that Feyre’s air conditioner was on full blast (something she could be angry at herself for later) she was drenched in sweat. Her bare legs were sticking to the soft leather of the couch, and her tank top had begun to cling to her skin.

“A nightmare,” she said out loud, to convince herself. “Not real. Not real.”

She repeated those words over and over to herself like a life line that she had to desperately cling to.  

_I made it out. I made it out. I made it out._

When she finally calmed down, she began her search of her flat.

She checked everywhere; under the bed, in the closet, even in the damned refrigerator. Her apartment looked like a tornado had gone through it by the end,  but having to clean up the aftermath was a small price to pay for some peace of mind. When she finally went to the bathroom and found no one behind the shower curtain, she allowed herself to sink to her knees with relief.

A few moments later, she turned to the toilet and vomited.

She wasn’t sure how long she remained there, clutching the side of the toilet, but when it was finally all over her throat was burning and her knees ached from the hard tiles beneath her. She was tired, but in many different ways that couldn’t be resolved with sleep. Luckily her clothes were spared from her sudden attack, something she felt grateful for. She didn’t have to shower, and could just return to the couch and flop herself down. After checking her phone, Feyre saw that it was around 1:00 in the morning. There was no way in hell that she was going to go back to sleep anytime soon. Perhaps she could just distract herself with something on her laptop until she was too exhausted to even stay awake. By that point at least, she could be tugged down into a dreamless sleep.

When her laptop finally turned on, Feyre saw something on her desktop that she was sure wasn’t there before. It was a logo consisting of three stars above a mountain range, and the words _Prythian Online_ beneath it.  A quick google search told her that it was some sort of online game.

_Prythian Online, a fantasy MMORPG; enter the world of the Fae and fight against the infamous blight. Will you be able to save Prythian from its certain doom?_

Feyre groaned. _This_ must have been the thing Lucien was talking about earlier in the day, that he said he installed while he was working on her computer. Just  from reading its description, Feyre noticed that it was a very large game taking up a huge amount of space on her laptop. She was all but ready to delete it off her hardrive and give Lucien a piece of her mind when something caught her attention.

_The Night Court_

Beneath it was the same logo that was on her desktop, and a vast history about the Night Court in comparison to other courts. She wasn’t sure what _exactly_ it was that appealed to her, but she figured...she figured she could give it a try. The graphics were nice, and she could appreciate it from an artist's standpoint.

_It’ll at least give me something to do until I pass out. What do I have to lose?_

With a sigh, Feyre doubled clicked the small icon on her desk top, and entered the world of Prythian.

 

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaa I hope you guys enjoyed this! Constructive criticism is always welcome! I'm really bad at summaries so I'm sorry if the summary is misleading, I promise it gets super fluffy eventually!


End file.
